Chicago Bulls: 3 players that won’t be playing in the Windy City in 21-22

Chicago Bulls players that won’t be playing here in 21-22: Denzel Valentine

The likelihood that the Bulls see the former Michigan State Spartans 6-foot-4 and 220 pound 27-year-old shooting guard/wing Denzel Valentine return for the 2021-22 campaign seems slim to none at this point. A common trend keeps emerging that the Bulls have the playing time of Valentine decline pretty dramatically down the stretch.

In his career to date with the Bulls, Valentine saw his playing time dip each month from February to May (in terms of minutes per game). That’s happened in all but one of the seasons he’s played in for the Bulls thus far. And it happened again under Donovan’s direction during the 2020-21 regular season.

This is a noteworthy trend that Valentine both sees his playing time and overall production drop down the stretch. As the Bulls look to really make a postseason push next season, they’ll need players on the wing that can help get this team over the hump. It feels like Valentine’s body of work of late shows that he can do anything but that.

Valentine is also in the final year of his current contract. He is set to hit unrestricted free agency for the first time in his career this offseason. Karnisovas and the Bulls had already re-signed him off of the restricted free agent market last fall, and it’s hard to see them doing the same again this offseason with a more promising cycle of free agency coming about this summer.